From Thursday, Sept. 15 to Saturday, Oct. 15, Hamilton joins the United States as it celebrates Latinx Heritage Month, also known as National Hispanic Heritage Month.
To celebrate this month, La Vanguardia (LV), a DMC-affiliated organization with a mission of supporting and amplifying the voices of Latinx students on campus, is partnering with various campus partners such as the DMC, Sadove, the Black Latinx Student Union (BLSU), the Feminists of Color Collective (FCC), the International Cultural Association (ICA) and the Gender and Sexuality Union (GSU) to celebrate “Unidos con Fuerza,” an intentional effort to catalyze unity amidst ongoing tragedy and difficulty amidst various communities.
We interviewed La Vanguardia E-Board members Kathy Guerra ’24 and Brandon Navarro ’24 to ask them to explain the month, their thought process behind their planned events and the goals that they want to achieve during the month.
Explain Latinx Heritage month to people that don’t know about it. What do you want people to know about it?
Navarro: “Latinx Heritage Month is a month dedicated to celebrating, uplifting and amplifying the voices of Latinx people. It is a month dedicated to us to celebrate our cultural background and traditions and a time for the Latinx community to come together and share our culture amongst ourselves. Latinx Heritage Month is from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 every year because several Latin American countries celebrate their independence days during that time.”
What was your thought process behind the events you planned for the month?
Navarro and Guerra: “We wanted to embrace different Latin American cultures throughout the month. It can be hard for Latinx students to adjust to being away from their families and home where they are able to experience a lot of their cultural practices or traditions. Through means of art, music and food, Latinx students can have that feeling of home. We also want people from outside the Latinx community to learn and experience what it means to be Latinx, so we also want to make sure that our events are open to people from the greater Hamilton community. We believe that by sharing our rich culture and background, we can work towards making Hamilton a more diverse and inclusive environment.”
What would you like to achieve from the events and programming from this month?
Guerra: “When planning our events, we wanted to focus on unity. A lot of tragic events continue to emerge in Latinx communities, but we have seen the rise of unity among our people. We chose to focus on the theme ‘Unidos con Fuerza’ meaning ‘United with Strength’ to value the effort to overcome difficulties that these groups encounter. We want to demonstrate that even through adversity, Latinx communities continue to celebrate the richness of our cultures and the grand diversity we have!”
As for upcoming plans, on September 30th, LV plans on hosting Dalí Quartet in the Wellin Hall in collaboration with the Performing Arts Department, an event “acclaimed for bringing Latin American quarter repertoire to an equal standing alongside the Classical and Romantic Cannon” as LV describes it. This performance will feature Juan R. Ramírez’s Latina for String Quartet, Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartet №2 and Felix Mendelssohn’s String Quartet №6.
Additionally, on October 5th, LV will be hosting the Latinx Artist Art Walk in collaboration with the Wellin Museum. Finally, to end the events of the month, a blacklight concert with Ana Macho will be hosted in collaboration with GSU on October 7th.
